TV REVIEW : Alternative Rock Overview on MTV

What is “alternative rock,” anyway, when bands said to fall into that seemingly left-field category are now consistently rounding out the Top 10? Hard to say, but like pornography, we know it when we see it--and so does MTV, whose special “120 Minutes Presents: The Alternative Year in Rock” (at 10 tonight) provides a good, quick overview of the commercial gains made by erstwhile musical outsiders in ’92.

In an introductory segment, “120 Minutes” host Dave Kendall traces the alternative lineage from ‘60s anti-psychedelic art rock (the Velvet Underground) to ‘70s punk and new wave (the Ramones) to today’s grunge-playin’, shorts-wearin’, multiplatinum Seattle lads. That beginners’ history out of the way, much of the remainder of the hour is devoted to single-song reruns of recent live performances, a good enough reason for tuning in.

From September’s MTV Video Music Awards show, Pearl Jam’s intense, riveting “Jeremy” is reprised, as is the on-stage dance fest that was the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away,” the controlled chaos of which seems rather contrived.

Lesser-seen highlights include live-in-the-studio numbers from pop-grunge superstars Nirvana, pop-metalbilly idol Morrissey and the not-so-pop Sonic Youth, the only group here predestined never to have a real radio hit. Closing out the hour is a passionate tour performance of U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky,” rendered nigh unwatchable by pointlessly artsy photography.

News-wise, Kendall reminisces on the multiband “Lollapalooza” tour, the emergence of countless subgenres of the dance music known as techno, and the chart successes of most of the groups chronicled. The latter irony only makes it all the more odd when Kendall--in a year when even Casey Kasem is countin’ down the grunge--offers alternative-inclined MTV viewers a parting “thanks for wanting more out of life than the daily drudgery of the Top 40 lifestyle,” whatever in the world that is.